This is my entry for the Valentine's Contest! Thank you for voting!
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Present Pain
Heat from hundreds of cars increased the already unbearable morning temperature. Fumes made the air feel thick and noxious. People packed the sidewalks like sardines, faces glistening with sweat, eyes unseeing as they rushed to reach their destinations.
Brenna O'Shea wondered if her own face would mirror what she was feeling. Empty, alone, desolate - if they bothered to look, would they see?
Reaching her office building, Brenna pushed open the glass door, hit full face by stale, air-conditioned air. The sweat on her slim neck immediately chilled, sending a shiver down her spine. Hitting the up arrow on the elevator, she looked at her reflection in the smooth metal doors.
Her wavy red hair was desperately trying to free itself of the severe twist she'd forced it into this morning, small curls lying damply against her nape. The paleness of her face made her wide dark green eyes appear larger, almost too large. There was no color to her normally full lips, currently drawn into a tight line of stress. She looked much older than her thirty years, tired, used up.
The body under the fitted black suit was too slim, almost bony. She'd had no appetite for the past few months and has steadily lost weight. Life held no joy any longer. Brenna had become a prisoner to a life she'd thought she wanted. A life that was slowly draining away her will to live.
The metal doors opened with a musical ding and Brenna stepped in, pressed the large five and waited for the mechanical clang to begin. It took mere seconds to reach her floor, unlock her office and begin her day.
Twelve long hours later, Brenna repeated the routine, only in reverse. Halfway through her walk home it began to rain, fat, hot raindrops that rapidly soaked through to the skin. By the time Brenna walked up the steps to her apartment building she was dripping wet and shivering.
Once inside she just stood there, clothes clinging to her skin, tears streaking down her cheeks. Brenna's heart ached with such loneliness and pain, sobs wracking her frail body. How much longer could she go on this way?
Looking around her apartment, Brenna took note of the luxuries her career afforded her. A pure cashmere throw in the deepest blue lay over the arm of her designer cream colored couch. Hanging on the wall, a state of the art plasma screen television and two expensive prints by a well known painter. Her kitchen had every new convenience a woman could want or need.
Everything she owned was the best. From her Jimmy Choo shoes to her six hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.
It was what she didn't see that made her sobs so painful. There were no toys strewn across her Persian carpets. No happy family portraits sitting on her mahogany mantle. No joyous voices calling out for her, happy to have her return home.
All she had were things. Cold, hard, unyielding items that didn't love her, comfort her, couldn't hold her close. Was this what she'd really wanted when she'd come to America? What she'd fought so hard to achieve? Things?
Her sobs began to lessen and Brenna sat her purse and briefcase on the floor, kicking off the now ruined three hundred dollar pair of Italian leather pumps. She looked at them for a minute then leaned down to pick them up. In a fit of pure defiance, Brenna stepped over to the trash can in her kitchen and tossed them inside rather violently.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up from deep in her gut. Setting it free, Brenna stripped out of her elegantly fitted suit and tossed that in the trash with the shoes. Standing there in her kitchen wearing nothing but her expensive silk lingerie, Brenna took back her life. She didn't know where she was going or what she'd be doing - but, it would be what ever made her happy again!
The apartment was silent and dark, its resident sleeping soundly, safely in her bed. Even the grandfather clock in the hall seemed to hush its usual noise, so reverent was the silence. The sheets tangled around Brenna's legs, rustled briefly, caressing milky white skin before settling again. A soft sigh broke from between her rosy, full lips.
In her dream, she stands on a high green hill, looking out over the land her family had lived on for generations. The wind blew gently, swirling her long skirt around her legs, teasing her long auburn locks. The scent of fragrant peat and the sea made the air seem alive. A wide smile on her lips, she turned her head up to the sun, threw out her arms and drank it all in.
Eyes closed she could hear the sea to her left, the waves beating relentlessly against the cliffs, so violent yet rhythmic, peaceful. Her body felt its draw, felt it calling to her heart and soul. The sea, when calm, was a woman softly calling her lover to her arms. When stormy it is a man, demanding and strong, defiantly making his mark.
She suddenly screamed into the wind, a howl of loneliness and heartache, her dark green eyes flashing its hurt for all to see. The sea continued its song of seduction, whispering for her to come home. Here was life, happiness. Here was peace and people who loved her, cared for her, cherished her. Here was the innocence of childhood, so sweet. She would be safe, free.
The breeze came again, caressing her flesh, beckoning to her. As she woke slowly, dawn barely tinting her windows, she could still hear its call. Come home Brenna, it said. Just come home. She lay there for several long moments, reveling in the feeling of contentment that still rode her, wondering when she'd lost it.
Eventually she did rise, shower, even made some tea. While she sipped the strong brew, she made plans and phone calls. Brenna called in every favor due her and made sure her clients found new representation. Her secretary would take care of closing her office, storage of important documents and files, etc. A realtor was contacted to sell her apartment, completely furnished.
Brenna's final task was to call the airlines. She booked a flight out of St. Louis to Dublin, Ireland. It had taken six long months to get everything in order but Brenna would be back on her home soil before Valentines' Day. Humming an old Celtic tune, Brenna danced around her kitchen in happiness.
New Beginnings and Old Friends
Brenna stood outside her childhood home, amazed at how much it looked the same. She'd been paying a man for years to take care of it and he'd done a good job. Even the shutters were painted the same color they'd been when she'd left so long ago. She pulled the key from her pocket and unlocked the door.
Immediately the scents of mint and honey reached her senses. Her mother had loved mint, kept sprigs of it drying all around the tiny cottage. Hours would pass while Anna O'Shea made her honey and mint soaps, humming softly as her hands shaped the richly scented bars.
It had broken her mother's heart when Brenna decided to move to the States to go to school. There had been fighting and tears, but in the end she'd let Brenna go because it's what she would have done herself so long ago. No daughter of hers was going to settle for being a wife and mother when she could be something great.
Some greatness I achieved Mum, Brenna thought. Defending the worst of the worst, making sure they spent little if any time in jail for their crimes against others. Some of her clients had been guilty, she'd known it, but it was her job to make sure she got them off. The stress of dealing with the underbelly of life had taken its toll on Brenna. But, now she was home. Now she could start again. Make things right.
Her mother had died three years before on Valentines' Day, but Brenna had been in the middle of a huge murder trial and hadn't come home for the burial. She'd sent a cheque for the upkeep of the house every month to Daniel Killian, their closest neighbor. He'd chided her in the beginning for not coming to see her mother laid to rest, but eventually gave up as she never apologized.
Brenna's father had died when she was only two, an accident on the bogs where he worked harvesting peat. She didn't remember much about him, but her mother had told her she had her father's eyes. She set her bags down and moved across the parlor to pick up an old photograph of her and her mother, happy, smiling into each other's faces. Brenna couldn't remember exactly how old she was, but she looked to be around ten or eleven. Her heart suddenly ached fiercely, missing her mother's face and voice like never before. Tears fell unheeded down her cheeks. The pain was great, amazing in its power.
The portrait fell to the floor as a scream of pure anguish tore from her throat. Oh, how she wanted to sit and talk with her mother. Tell her all the horrors she'd seen, all the horrible things she'd done. How she longed to have her mother pull her into her soft arms, stroke her hair and murmur to her, tell her everything would be okay. But it wasn't okay. Her mother was gone and she'd never even said goodbye. Hadn't taken that one last look at her beautiful face and kissed her cheek. There would never be another chance.
Brenna turned, ran out the door and headed blindly down the path to the family plots. There had to be time to tell her, to make her hear how much she loved her. Tell her how sorry she was that she hadn't come in time. The sobs tearing from her made running hard on her chest, breathing ragged and ugly.
Oh God, she thought, I don't even know where my own mother is buried. Searching frantically, Brenna ran from headstone to headstone, falling down several times in her rush to find the marker with her mother's name. When she did find it the shock was so abrupt that she immediately fell to her knees, hands covering her face as the sobs came faster, her chest heaving hard.
